This invention relates to data processing, and more particularly to address generation units using nested loops to scan multi-dimensional data structures.
Signal and media processing (also referred to herein as “data processing”) is pervasive in today's electronic devices. This is true for cell phones, media players, personal digital assistants, gaming devices, personal computers, home gateway devices, and a host of other devices. From video, image, or audio processing, to telecommunications processing, many of these devices must perform several if not all of these tasks, often at the same time.
For example, a typical “smart” cell phone may require functionality to demodulate, decrypt, and decode incoming telecommunications signals, and encode, encrypt, and modulate outgoing telecommunication signals. If the smart phone also functions as an audio/video player, the smart phone may require functionality to decode and process the audio/video data. Similarly, if the smart phone includes a camera, the device may require functionality to process and store the resulting image data. Other functionality may be required for gaming, wired or wireless network connectivity, general-purpose computing, and the like. The device may be required to perform many if not all of these tasks simultaneously.
Similarly, a “home gateway” device may provide basic services such as broadband connectivity, Internet connection sharing, and/or firewall security. The home gateway may also perform bridging/routing and protocol and address translation between external broadband networks and internal home networks. The home gateway may also provide functionality for applications such as voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) and/or video over IP, audio/video streaming, audio/video recording, online gaming, wired or wireless network connectivity, home automation, virtual private network (VPN) connectivity, security surveillance, or the like. In certain cases, home gateway devices may enable consumers to remotely access their home networks and control various devices over the Internet.
Depending on the device, many of the tasks it performs may be processing-intensive and require some specialized hardware or software. In some cases, devices may utilize a host of different components to provide some or all of these functions. For example, a device may utilize certain chips or components to perform modulation and demodulation, while utilizing other chips or components to perform video encoding and processing. Other chips or components may be required to process images generated by a camera. This may require wiring together and integrating a significant amount of hardware and software.
Currently, there is no unified architecture or platform that can efficiently perform many or all of these functions, or at least be programmed to perform many or all of these functions. Thus, what is needed is a unified platform or architecture that can efficiently perform tasks such as data modulation, demodulation, encryption, decryption, encoding, decoding, transcoding, processing, analysis, or the like, for applications such as video, audio, telecommunications, and the like. Further needed is a unified platform or architecture that can be easily programmed to perform any or all of these tasks, possibly simultaneously. Such a platform or architecture would be highly useful in home gateways or other integrated devices, such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), video/audio players, gaming devices, or the like.